Freedom of movement (FoM) is the degree to which individuals or groups have—and perceive that they have—the ability to move from place to place within a given environment as well as into and out of that environment. While doctrine and professional literature on the subject of FoM is sparse and often inconsistent, there are some clear indications that FoM is an important consideration for COIN tactics, operations, and strategy. The purpose of this report is to examine the ways in which U.S. military staffs assess FoM to help commanders and policymakers determine the success or failure of the...

The purpose of counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign assessment is to provide military and policy decisionmakers with an understanding of how a campaign is progressing toward achieving the strategic end state defined by national policy. Assessment is typically a military task, and in Afghanistan theater-level assessment, groups in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and ISAF Joint Command (IJC) are tasked with assessing the ISAF campaign plan and supporting assessment of the joint and combined transition plan (Inteqal).¹ These efforts tend to rely on a modified version of effects-based assessment (EBA), as defined in U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) doctrinal...

This chapter reflects our analysis of the concept of FoM in COIN operations and how it can be used to inform assessment. It begins by looking at FoM from a very broad perspective by describing international theories that have been applied to FoM assessment and then examines the ways in which FoM is presented in the COIN literature and doctrine. The intent of the literature and doctrine review is to show what is and is not available to theater assessment analysts in Afghanistan and to identify gaps and inconsistencies in FoM terms and theories.

On the surface, “freedom of movement”...

The purpose of this chapter is to show what has been done to address FoM by counterinsurgents in historic cases, by a range of staffs in ISAF, and by third-party organizations in Afghanistan. The goal is to identify those efforts that worked or provided some insight and those that did not work. Because military and third-party assessments have considered some or many of the issues raised earlier in this report, this chapter necessarily revisits some of these points in the context of actual assessment. To examine past and current practice, we also explore the ways in which FoM has been...

This chapter provides more detailed definitions for each of the five different categories of FoM discussed earlier in this report. It also includes recommendations that are intended to help develop or improve an FoM assessment process to support the development of campaign assessments. These recommendations are methods for developing an assessment process for FoM; they do not present a finished process with accompanying metrics.¹ Officially defining FoM, conducting objective-to-assessment analysis, and then defining collection requirements will require an up-to-date and detailed understanding of ISAF objectives and theater collection capabilities that is available only to ISAF staff. It will also require...